Capelongue, Bonnieux

Many luxury hotels in Provence work through the same list: lavender along the drive, an infinity pool, rosé on ice, a Provençal print on every cushion. Capelongue, on a plateau outside Bonnieux, has quietly put the list away. It resembles a farming hamlet that grew up by itself, house by house, with a square and a fountain, a café, a little bookshop and vegetable gardens running out to the fields. Cars stay at the edge. The luxury is disguised as country life, and the disguise is what makes it special.

The trick lies in what is left out: no grand entrance, no grand-lobby procession, nothing that shines just to be noticed. Beaumier, the group behind Les Roches Rouges, has given the old stone buildings ochre lime-wash, worn terracotta, wooden panelling and furniture made by craftsmen in the region. Lanes and steps replace corridors. Money has gone into the plaster, the linen and the square rather than into making an arrival look expensive. The hotel is designed to feel as though it grew here without anybody drawing a master plan.

The fifty-seven rooms and suites are scattered through the houses; some have a terrace or garden, and connecting rooms make family stays easier. The suite in the old dovecote looks towards the Petit Luberon and has a sitting room of its own. Others look to Bonnieux, the real hilltop village across the valley: the hamlet's grand neighbour and its finest view. Not every window gets the same landscape, and that matters when you are paying to disappear into it.

Every village has its hearth, and here it is the wood fire of La Bergerie. Evenings begin at the bar, with its long collection of pastis, and end beside the flames, eating the country around: Sisteron lamb cooked over embers, pork from Mont Ventoux, guinea fowl from nearby Le Thor flamed in the fireplace, a risotto of local spelt. At La Bastide, chef Noël Bérard takes the same markets somewhere finer, with snails from Roussillon and a dash of pastis. It is the Provence most visitors hunt for between souvenir shops, served at home.

The company suits the setting. Travellers who skip the coast in high summer have traded the beach-club procession for something more eccentric: a book from the little shop on the square, a long lunch, a second swim. Days drift between the two pools, one for lengths and one for looking at the lavender, and the dry-stone spa with its Roman bath. Or you can take an electric bike into the cedar forest of the Petit Luberon. Gordes and Roussillon are close, and best seen early, before the coaches.

The disguise has a seam or two. A country road crosses the estate, so the car-free spell is broken now and then by passing traffic. Restaurant service can be more correct than warm, an air conditioner or curtain lets down the odd room, and summer evenings bring mosquitoes. Everything beyond the gate needs a car, and Capelongue shuts from late autumn until spring.

A real farming hamlet would have a tractor in the square and a dog asleep by the fountain. Capelongue has neither, and nobody misses them. Everything else looks homegrown, from the houses to the dinner, and across the valley Bonnieux, the real thing, glows at sunset as though it approved.